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AGD sponsor a pro team or hie reps?

hi people long time no see. I was going to reply to another thread but figured this would actually be better in its own thread. Now ive been out of it for a year so i am not all up to date on where agd has gone but...

sponsor a pro team i think if agd was serious and got a really good team i mean one that was definately going to win many tournys, that might be an ok buy. but then you have to spend how much in adds to let people know you have that team. and yadda yadda.

here is somehtign i have not seen yet. if those numbers are correct. 250k you could hire for 50k per year 5 college educated and expirenced engineers to build products and work on any problems you could have.

or for about the same price you could hire and pay the way for 4 -5 representatives. to travel areas of the country and support AGD products. every buisness is doign that now days drop by a hardware store for a week and see the reps and vendors goto work they educate, and persuade costomers to buy thier products. I had at one time expirence in home depot and you might be amazed how well a paint rep can get costomers to buy his paint he has the ability to show you little expirements, to prove that his paint has cirtain qualities and will even bust open a can of someone elses paint to prove it. Then sit back and watch that costomers spread the same knowledge to people they know.

I personally think that is a much better use of your money. the only way a pro team is worth it is if they are for sure going to win and at every tourney every member of that team will be pressing your product hard. Reps can do that in many more places much better imo.

Other things reps do is make sure that store employees are knowledgable about products.

for those who dont know let me show you what a typical day of an AGD rep might be like. You drive to a store, you go into the store and you say hi to the employees you look for employees you dont know yet. then you ask them what they know about your product and you invite them to follow you as you make sure the AGD products are looking nice and displayed in thier right places. then you start to tell them how AGD products work what is so good about them and you will probably have a couple stickeers or small promo items for them. then you hang out in the store for a while and help the store out with customers or anythign they need. I have had reps help me stock shelves with boxes from other products or do anythign even sweep the floor. they do this cause winning a friend is winning costomer base. An agd gun rep would also be armed with a complete sample product line backed up with brand new products all ready to be sold directly to the store at that time. WHY ? well in many cases in paintball a store cannot afford to stock a paintball gun like an emag xtreme in which case if the rep was doing a good job in a store he might have a customer wanting that item that day and the rep could go pull it out of his car put it on the stores credit and the store could sell it right there to that new agd customer. Or many times a rep doing a good job will actually persuade the store owner to start stocking agd products that day in which case he will need a couple warps, air systems and maybe a gun or 2 right away to get him set up.

on any given day an agd rep might be playing and demoing products at a field fixing an agd product for someone for free. anythign that will help sell products and educate players and employees.

sorry if thats hard to read im still tired.

I believe that this would sell far more guns then any sponsorship could ever handle.

well my point was whatever they were thinking about investing in sponsorships or even just something to think about for the future. obviosly i dont have a clue as to what agds financial status is either, but the people in the other thread seemed to think 250k was about right for a team sponsorship.

Sorry but you need to do a lot more than plug on AO to get the word out for people to buy!

You're not going to get distributors/dealers to buy these products now for their shelves when people can just buy factory direct for what their cost is! So overall dealer support is definately going to go down when the company undersells their dealers (believe me I was pissed when I have to pay 275 for an Xvalve to hear at a venue they're selling 'em for 225!)

Personally I think it's not the greatest business decision. But hey I don't own the company so it doesn't matter what I think.

actually i was thinking more down near 25 to 35k but i figured after travel and training expenses it might get as high as 50k im talkign total cost.

any how its all in how you look at it in my expirence reps do a much better job pushing product then sponsored people.

you have to ask your self why is it that people dont use buy mags over the next gun. if you really think it is because the pros dont shoot them then you need to start lookign to sponsor a team, if you cant afford it look for a couple good players on teams that are not locked into a contract.

if you thin the reason is lack of knowledge then yu need to make a plan for giving people knowledge. you can try adds with info in magazines, you can trywebsites which agd has done well with. or maybe reps.

this is one thing i see over and over in paintball stores im in. the employees really do push product you walk into a store with employees who like tippmanns and ask them how many tippmanns they sell vs spyders and clones and most cases they push tippmanns out faster, go to the other side of town and see guys who liked spyders and you get a different story.

a rep can give you a real hard and not that expensive link to these employees and store owners. If you dont believe me why not give it an honest try, take one of you techs and give him a little 3 week tangent where he goes out and does these type of duties. see what kind of stories he come back with see if you see a few more or maybe a bunch more sales coming from feilds where he does his rounds.